


Transforming Truths into Lies and Truths into Truths

by coffee_mage



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Child trans character, Domestic Violence, Trans!Clint, Transgender, Trigger Warning: Murder, Victim Blaming, fear of sexual assault, referenced sexual abuse of an adult, trigger warning: drug use, trigger warning: internalized transphobia, trigger warning: transman going through puberty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-13
Updated: 2014-10-31
Packaged: 2018-01-12 04:50:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,633
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1182125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffee_mage/pseuds/coffee_mage
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Francis Barton was born into abject poverty and abuse, one step from being on the streets.  It never occurred to him that he was a girl until his foster mother put him in a dress.</p><p>Francis Barton ran away with Barney, then Clint Barton joined the circus with his brother and learned to shoot a bow.</p><p>Clint F. Barton became an assassin and got tracked down by SHIELD where he learned he was so stealth that not even a shadowy government agency could tell how he'd been born anymore.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Who says Francis is a girls' name?

Francis stayed under the bed, back pressed against the wall and lips pressed together.  Daddy was drunk and Daddy was scary when he was drunk.  He was usually okay to Francis, but sometimes he took things out on Barney and Mommy, so it was better to stay out of sight, out of mind and silent when Daddy’s boots went stomping and his shoulders boomed against the walls of the trailer when he swayed.

This time, he seemed pretty happy, which was good.  It meant he hadn’t seen the note from Francis’s teacher asking Mommy to make sure that she sent Francis to school in clean clothes.  It was always scary when Daddy saw a note from school.  That was when he’d get really angry with Francis and sometimes that made there be more notes and that got even worse.

But Daddy was happy tonight.  Francis could tell because he kept laughing and he’d been putting his hands under Mommy’s clothes, the way grownups were supposed to when they loved each other very much.  Francis had run under the bed when dinner was over, so he could take Mommy’s clothes off and wouldn’t be mad that stupid kids were watching him love his wife.

Francis waited for Mommy to start making the shouts that meant Daddy was having a lot of fun, then crawled out from under the bed and crept out the door to go sit in the little playground in the trailer park.  An hour or two went by as Francis sat on the top of the monkey bars, Barney arriving at some point, watching the lights at home to see if Daddy was in bed yet.  The shadows got longer and the sun set.  Francis shivered a little, wearing Barney’s threadbare old sweater as the trailer door opened and Daddy pulled Mommy along behind him to the car and drove off.

Francis crept back into the house and curled up in bed, blankets pulled up all the way.  Being asleep when Daddy got home meant that he might not be so angry.  He liked it when Francis and Barney were good and quiet.  It was how kids were supposed to be.

When Francis woke, there was a stranger standing next to the bed.  “Sweetheart, you need to wake up.”

Francis sat up, staring in fear.  “Who are you?”

“My name is Cathy.  I’m a social worker.  Do you know what that means?”

“Mommy and Daddy are real nice and they love us,” Francis said dutifully.

“Your name’s Francis, right?” Cathy asked.

Francis nodded, wide eyed and scared.

“Franny, sweetie, I have some bad news…”

 

 

Everything had changed and Francis wasn’t sure it was for the better.  Foster mother number seven was just like all the others, only this place was worse because there were school uniforms.  Barney got a pair of grey pants and a white shirt and Francis didn’t see why that wouldn’t do for the both of them.  Francis had to wear a skirt and knee socks.  From the very first foster home, the foster mothers all wanted to comfort Francis with something one of them had called ‘retail therapy.’  This seemed to consist of putting Francis in frilly clothes and skirts, impractical things you could see through half the time or that would rip the first time you put any pressure on them.

At first, Francis had protested that no, he wasn’t wearing the stupid girls’ clothes.  He was a boy, just like Barney, and there was no way in hell that he was wearing a skirt.  How could you hide in a skirt?  How could you run?  It seemed like his legs would get tangled and a sharp burst of wind would expose the stupid, frilly, sparkly underpants they kept buying him.

But protesting that no, he was a boy like Barney only made the foster mothers look worried and get doctors involved.  Stupid doctors that wanted to endlessly talk about Mom and Dad and what had happened and whether or not Dad had ever touched him between his legs and if he was afraid of being hurt like Mom had been. Francis hated talking about the fact that his parents had died in a car accident, no, his father had never raped him, molested him or otherwise sexually assaulted him and no, he wasn’t afraid of being hurt like Mom.  She’d been stupid enough to stay with an asshole like Dad and Francis knew better than to do something that dumb.  

So Francis shut up and wore the skirts and dresses and little t-shirts that didn’t quite meet his jeans when he sat down.  He got used to the constricting pink underpants with glitter that rubbed all over the insides of his jeans.  He didn’t like it, but he tolerated it, if only to keep them all quiet, shut them all up.  Of course, it was too late, by then.  There were still appointments a couple of times a month with the stupid therapists, always poking and asking how he felt about being a girl.

And now these stupid, idiotic uniforms.  Why anyone would even bother getting them shiny new uniforms was beyond Francis.  After all, they’d probably be moving on before the school year was over.  No one ever wanted to keep them.  Barney was ‘belligerent’ and ‘difficult’ and the one time they’d ever tried separating Barney and Francis, Francis had run away four times a week and screamed himself hoarse every day for a month.  He hadn’t spoken a word except to scream.  After thirty four days, they’d driven Francis to where Barney was and no one had tried separating them since.  They were brothers and no one was going to get between them, for all that Barney insisted Francis was just his copycat little sister. 

It didn’t take long after the uniforms came into their lives for Francis to be roughly shaken awake by Barney.  “Frankie, come on, we’re running away.”

Francis got out of bed instantly.  “Okay.  Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.”

 

 

They’d been sleeping rough, occasionally taking busses to get far enough no one would find them, for nearly a month when Barney crowed happily, pointing at a sign on a post.  “Frankie, we’re in luck.”

“What’s it say?” he asked, peering at the sign curiously.  The letters were hard to keep in order and it was always so frustrating.  It had gotten him so many extra teacher meetings when he'd been in school.

Barney rolled his eyes.  “You’re old enough to fucking read.”

“Come on.  Please?”  Francis looked at his big brother appealingly.

“Circus.  It’s leaving tonight.  I’ll bet we can get work with them.”

Francis’s eyes widened.  “Really?  You think we could really join the circus?”  It was like every fantasy he'd ever had coming true.  He'd be an acrobat and walk a tight rope.  He'd play clapping games with elephants and get shot out of a cannon.  It would be amazing.

Barney shrugged.  “I don’t know, but I’m hoping.  I’m damn near out of cash and people aren’t exactly handing us much when we beg.  If you’d put on one of your damn skirts and look sad, we’d make better money.”

Francis glared daggers at Barney.  “I ditched the skirts two busses ago.  They’re useless.”

“Well, they will be now, for sure,” Barney said, his thinking face on.

Francis blinked, startled.  “What do you mean?”  Barney had been harping on the fact that Francis wouldn’t wear the skirts and play lost little girl while they panhandled for almost two states now.  Something had to be changing if he was finally agreeing.

“People get scared when it’s a runaway little girl looking for shelter, Frankie.  Plus, if anyone’s looking for us, they’re looking for a boy and a girl, not two boys.  You’re gonna have to pretend to be a boy or they might turn us down or, worse, turn us in.”

Francis felt a little swell of hope.  “Really?  You think?”  Maybe this was his chance.  If Barney wanted him to be a boy, finally, then maybe other people would get it.  Maybe no one would ever make him wear a stupid skirt again.

“Yeah.  We need to hit a dollar store and grab some scissors.  I’m gonna cut your hair and you can toss your clothes.  Keep your jeans and take some of my shirts.  Once we’re making money, you can have some more stuff, but we can’t take the gamble of spending everything we got right now.”

Francis nodded.  The haircut, hastily done on the side of the road and seen in a gas station bathroom, was crappy and uneven.  It was worse than the ones Mom had given him when he was little, with a bowl stuck on his head, but it was short enough not to get into his eyes, not to tickle at his collar.  He looked like himself again, and not the creature they’d tried to turn him into.  It was hard to keep himself from hugging Barney, but he figured Barney would smack him and tell him he was being too girly if he did.  Now was not the time to do something Barney might get pissed off about.  Francis didn't want to get left behind.

His step was light and he was excited excited as the people tearing down the circus tents came into view.  “Hey Barney?”

“Yeah?”

“I need a new name.  Francis is too girly.”  A name could give away so much.  It could confirm who you were, it could tell people stuff about you.  Francis was a name that told all the foster parents he was a girl, so what if it did circus people too?

Barney looked impressed.  “Yeah, maybe.  We can just call you Frank.”

“Frankie’s girly.”

“So?”

“So you’ll screw up and call me Frankie and people might ask questions.”

“Okay, dumbass.  What do you want me to call you then?”

Francis stopped and thought about it for a second, then grinned.  “You remember that guy that was in all those really awesome movies we snuck into a few towns back?”

“Who, John Wayne?”

“No.  Clint Eastwood.  John Wayne was an idiot.  I want to be Clint.  He’s all tough and awesome.”  He was.  Clint Eastwood was tall and strong looking.  He was the star of the movie and Francis figured he was a better guy than Dad ever was.

Barney considered it.  “Yeah, I guess Clint’s okay.”

“All right.  So don’t call me Frankie anymore.  I’m Clint.” 

“Cool.  Now when we get in there, let me do all the talking, you hear?”

Clint nodded, miming zipping his lips and beaming at his brother.

“Stop looking so happy.”

Clint just smiled wider.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Puberty isn't kind to transpeople. See notes at the end if you feel you might be triggered by a transman going through female puberty.

 Something soft hit Clint in the back of his head as he groggily got dressed to go see to the animals in the grey light of the bunk room of the tiny RV they shared with several other circus workers and he turned to glare at his brother.  “What?” he demanded.

“Wrap that around your chest,” Barney hissed.  

Clint blinked and looked down to see a bandage on the ground.  “What for?”

Barney beckoned him closer and looked at Clint seriously.  “You’re growing tits, Frankie.”  His voice was quiet and urgent and the old name put a little stab of concern through Clint.

Clint blinked and looked down.  Sure, his chest was a little puffy and weird and it was sore sometimes, but he’d just started learning how to pull the ropes of the big top tight.  It was probably just muscles swelling.  He’d had sore muscles more than once.  “Nah, I’m just overworking and eating too much cotton candy.”

“Don’t be so fucking stupid.  You’re the right age and shit, I think, and you’re growing tits.  If you don’t do something about it, we’re gonna get caught.  You’ve heard the way some of the guys talk about girls, you want to get raped?  I’m not strong enough to protect you if one of them decides he wants you.”  Barney looked worried and Clint didn’t like that.

“Of course I don’t want that, but I don’t see what a little fat on my chest has to do with that.”  Clint was getting scared.  Barney never, never mentioned the whole girl thing.  It was too dangerous, he’d said the last time he brought it up.  They couldn’t risk someone overhearing.

“That little bit of fat is tits starting to sprout.  You need to wrap your chest and keep that shit flat, or everyone’s gonna know you’re a girl, and then we’re screwed.”

“I’m not a girl,” Clint said stubbornly.

“Jesus Christ, Frankie, you are.  Grow the fuck up and smell the roses.  This bullshit was fine when you were a kid, but it’s gotta go.  You’re a girl and you’re gonna have to accept that so you can fucking hide it,” Barney whispered angrily.

Clint felt like he was shaking, he was so tense as he bent down to pick up the rolled up bandage, eyes never leaving Barney.  He was angry, he was hurt, he was upset and he didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to hear this.  Sure, Barney had a dick, but that didn’t mean Clint wasn’t a boy, too.  Just because stuff didn’t all match up the way everyone thought it should didn’t mean that you were something else.  Look at the bearded lady, for chrisakes.  Try saying she was a man because she had a beard and see where that got you.  “Fine.  Help me.”  He held the bandage out to his brother.

Barney nodded approvingly and started unrolling it.  “That’s better.”

 

 

Clint clutched the bow tightly in his hands as he snuck out of their RV with Barney’s equipment.  Of course, Barney had caught Duquesne’s eye and, in turn, Buck’s.  His shoulders were so much broader than Clint’s, he was so much more powerful, so much stronger.  Clint was just a skinny, scrawny kid living on a carefully calculated edge.  Eat enough to have the energy to work, but not enough to add any fat to his body.  He was terrified that adding fat would mean the swelling on his chest getting harder to hide, would expose him.  Clint wasn’t even as big as Barney had been at his age and he was starting to get remarks on being useless, how he should be stronger and better at his age, pulling more of his weight.

He needed to be part of an act and he was hoping that if he started stealing Barney’s bow and arrows every morning before Barney woke up, maybe he’d be able to talk Buck into taking him on, at least letting him do a warm-up act or some kind of synchronized shooting.  Something small, even, to ensure he was earning his keep.  That was all he wanted.

The bow was heavy as he lined up his shot, drawing back the string.  It took all his focus not to shake, the string took so much effort to pull back.  His chest ached under the bandages he wore any time he wasn’t sleeping, now, constrained too much in this new position.  He made himself breathe as deeply as he could to hold his body steady, and fired at the knot on the tree, barely visible in the lights from another RV.  He stood, shocked and staring as the arrow quivered in place.  He set the bow down and ran, jumping for joy when he confirmed it.  He’d hit the knot exactly.  

He ran back to the bow and put a second arrow in next to the first, then a third, then ran to collect them.  He fired over and over until his shoulders ached so badly he felt like they were on fire, then he crept back to the trailer.  His hand was on the door when a much larger hand clapped down on his shoulder and spun him around. 

He flinched at the smell of sour beer on Buck’s breath. “What?”

“Saw you, kid,” he said.  “Messing around with another man’s equipment is stupid.”

“I’m sorry, sir.  I just wanted to try.  I won’t do it again,” Clint said, words coming quickly.  He was doomed.  He was absolutely doomed.  He was about to get them both kicked out of the circus, all because he’d been an idiot.

“Draw weight’s at least ten pounds too high for you,” Buck continued.  “Your shoulders are going to be useless for days.”

“I won’t do it again, I swear,” Clint repeated, knees turning to jelly.

“Like hell you won’t.  I saw how you shot,” Buck replied.  

“Sir?”

“You’re scrawny.  You could pass for what, eleven, twelve?  Look good in the ring, for the kiddies, having a little tiny thing like you.  Yeah, when you wake up, come to my trailer with Barney.  You’re joining the act.”

Clint stared, feeling like his eyes were going to pop out of his head.  He was going to get to be part of an act.  He was really going to get to do it.  He’d won.  He’d barely started and he’d won already.  “Thank you!”

“Don’t thank me.  You’re gonna hurt until you get a little muscle and it’s gonna be hell.  Now go to bed, you’re going to need it.”  Buck released his shoulder.

Clint nodded and slipped inside, then shook his brother awake.  “Barney, Barney wake up!”

Barney groaned and cracked one eye.  “What?”

“Buck says I can join your act!”

“It was a dream, shaddap.”  Barney rolled over, pulling up his blankets.

“No, it really happened.  He saw me trying out your bow and he told me I was joining you!”

Barney grunted, already nearly asleep, so Clint climbed into his bunk and curled up.  He was going to be a star!

 

 

Months passed and Clint turned fifteen.  At the very least, Barney said he was fifteen now, though he wasn’t sure when that had happened.  He started to put on some muscle between the extra food that he needed just to stay functional with his training regimen and the training regimen in question.  He stole a waist belt thing from the strong man and found that it worked just as well to bind his chest down, but didn’t constrict his breathing as much.  He was training every hour he wasn’t too sore to draw a bow and getting better by the day.  He didn’t have to do nearly as many chores, because he had started doing some bits in the ring and if he got hurt doing chores, that would reduce the amount of money he was bringing in. 

At the end of one particularly gruelling day, where Buck was trying to teach him to stand on a horse’s back so he could start shooting from it, he went to grab a quick shower in their tiny cubicle.  He was sweaty and stinky and gross and he had horse shit in his hair.  He stripped off his clothes and the band tying his chest down efficiently and turned on the shower to step in, when a flash of red in his pants caught his eye.  He froze, staring in shock for a moment, then very slowly turned off the shower and started getting dressed again, making sure the band on his chest wasn’t visible, then stepped shockily out of the little bathroom.  He was going to get left behind.  That was what happened to people who got hurt badly enough to need a hospital.  They got left behind and he was screwed, he’d never be able to make his own way back to catch up.  He strode out of their RV and went to find his brother, who was drinking with the clowns.  

“Barney, I need you,” he said firmly, and grabbed his brother’s arm.

Barney rolled his eyes.  “All right, all right, slow down, I’m coming.”  He brought his drink with him as he followed Clint.  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

Clint looked around furtively.  “I think I got hurt when I fell off the horse,” he said quietly.  

Barney blinked.  “Hurt how?  Your ribs?”

Clint shook his head, the words sticking in his mouth and a buzzing filling his ears.  It took him a second to respond.  “I think I’m bleeding, like, inside.”

“Oh shit,” Barney said, eyes widening.  He looked worried.  “Why?  Are you coughing up blood?”

“No.  No, it’s coming out, like, maybe when I pee?  I don’t know.  Between my legs.  I went to take a shower and there’s blood.”  Clint’s voice was rising in pitch and shaking.  He felt like he was going to cry.  He was dying.  He was going to die.  

Barney made a disgusted face and took a swig of his drink.  “Oh fuck.  Clint, keep it down.”

“I’m dying!  Barney, I’m dying and you’re telling me to keep it down?”  The words came quickly and he felt like he couldn’t breathe.

Barney grabbed Clint’s arm, hard enough to hurt, and backed him up against the side of a trailer.  “You’re not fucking dying,” he hissed.  “How the fuck are you this stupid?  You’re having your… ugh… your period.”

“My what?” Clint asked, staring.

“It’s this thing girls do, dumbass.  You bleed from the crotch once a month.  You won’t die.  Just keep from soaking through your clothes and it’ll be fine.”

“I’m bleeding from my crotch, Barney.  This isn’t fine!”

“Keep it the fuck down, do you want everyone to know you’re a girl?  Look, I’ll get you something to keep from soaking through, okay?  You’re gonna be fine.  Go take your shower and I’ll get you something by the time you get out.”

“You don’t understand.  _This isn’t supposed to happen._ ”

“Yeah, Frankie, it is.  It’s a thing everyone does and it probably shoulda happened to you awhile back.  I probably should have warned you, but what’s done is done.”

“You knew this would happen?”

Barney shrugged.  “Well yeah, you’re a girl.”

“I’m _not._ ”

Barney grabbed him by the chin and, breath stinking of alcohol, got right into his face.  “Yes, _Francis_ , you _are._   You are a _girl_ and yes, we need to hide that, but this is a perfectly normal girl thing to have happen, so fucking accept it already.  Go.  Shower.  I will get you _things._ ”  He let go of his chin and stalked off.

Clint watched him leave and headed, stiff-legged, back to the shower.  He stood under the water, fist in his mouth to muffle the sound of his crying and felt, for the first time in his life, like maybe Barney was right about him being a girl.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains a transman unexpectedly experiencing his first period without any warning at all.


	3. Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clint's secrets hold him captive.
> 
> Sorry for this being so short, but it didn't actually fit with the content of the next chapter, I needed a transition here.
> 
> This chapter contains internalized transphobia and familial betrayal.

Clint made headliner properly, his very own act.  He loved it.  It was amazing, the connection with the audience, the quiet gasps as he missed an acrobat by a hair’s breadth to shoot an apple into a wall, where a horse would nibble at it.  He was never going to get enough of it.  Every eye on him.  Every moment depending on his skill, on his ability to control his body, to make it so that every shot was a bullseye and every leap or cartwheel or tumble was a shot.  

But then there were the moments where the lights were off and he wasn’t training or performing.  The moments filled with Barney’s burning resentment, with the growing suspicion that Duquesne and Buck were doing something that they shouldn’t be, something wrong, something Clint didn’t want to be a part of.  The signs were all there and he couldn’t help seeing them, but he didn’t want them to be the case, even when it become horribly obvious that Barney was in on it.  

He didn’t dare call Barney out.  He couldn’t.  His brother knew his secret.  If his brother got mad enough at him, he might talk and then Clint’s career was over.  It was bad enough, the ribbing he got for not growing any facial hair, for still having the high pitched voice of a child.  If the other performers found out he wasn’t exactly what he said he was, in every possible way, then he didn’t want to think what would come of it.  Barney had warned him often enough when he’d started growing breasts, hadn’t he?  It wouldn’t just be mocking, it had gone too far for that.  He’d be lucky if the other guys let him live in the end, he thought.  

By now he’d heard some things about the men who thought they were women, the ones that put on fancy dresses and lured men in, only to try to sodomize them.  He didn’t think that was the whole truth.  If he was a boy who was born a girl, why wouldn’t there be girls who were born boys?  He didn’t want to sodomize anyone, after all.  Not that it was even a possibility.  He didn’t dare get naked with anyone.  It wasn’t safe.  And fuck, didn’t that piss him off.  All the other guys his age were getting off with townies and there he was, virgin forever because his goddamn dick never grew in and he couldn’t risk anyone ever finding out.  

His life, he was pretty sure, was never going to stop being based on secrets.  Not lies.  But secrets.  Endless secrets.  Names he couldn’t speak, things he couldn’t do, body parts he shouldn’t have.  

And now his brother was caught up in something that made him worried and scared and horrified and he didn’t dare ask.  It kept him up at night, turning it over in his head.  How much could he risk pushing Barney?    How much longer could he take the risk that Barney was going to get himself killed?  

What would he do without Barney, without anyone who knew Clint’s secrets?  How could he survive?  Who would bring him a hot water bottle when his abdomen was all puffy and ached so badly he could barely stand upright?  Who would watch his back while he pissed in the woods when the latrines were yet to be set up and the grey water tank in the RV was full from days on the road?  How long would it be before someone found him out?

He’d have to leave the circus, and then what would he do?  He couldn’t even read properly, not more than he needed to to read a fucking map or a diner menu.  He was trapped and he knew it.

When Barney grabbed him by the arm and told Clint he was going out on a job, that they were going to rob some houses, Clint didn’t have a choice.  He had to do as he was told.  

When Barney pinned him up against the side of an RV and told him they were ‘just’ going to cheat at some cards, Clint agreed easily.

When Buck and Barney robbed the circus owner and dragged Clint along with them as they made their escape, he said stop.

After Clint found himself bleeding on the ground, an arrow through his shoulder and his leg busted, it took him months to recover, stitching his own wounds as best he could with dirty hands and thread torn from his clothes, his needle made from a safety pin he'd had holding his jeans together and passing out several times when he straightened out his own leg and splinted it.  He spent weeks sitting in the forest, glad it was warm enough he wouldn’t freeze.  He sat in silence, shooting rabbits and squirrels with the bow and handful of arrows Barney hadn’t taken, cooking his kills over tiny fires made of just enough fuel to keep it going.  He dragged his body with his one good arm and his one good leg to get water and fuel and to pick up the carcasses.  

He thought his survival might actually be the first bit of luck he’d ever had.


	4. Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The streets aren't kind to a young man with no real life experience or skills.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TRIGGER WARNING: Murder

Winter was hard.  The cold made Clint’s leg ache so he just wanted to curl up somewhere and wait for it to pass.  The cold also made that impossible, because if he did, he was terrified he’d freeze to death.  There weren’t many jobs for someone with no identification, even a birth certificate, with no record of where he’d come from and with no education to speak of. There was no social assistance, either.  He kept to the cities, sleeping in filthy shelters where he curled around the duffle bag he kept his taken down bow and his arrows in.  He begged for change to get food.  When the shelters were closed or so full he couldn’t get a bed, sometimes he used some of his hard earned food money to buy drugs so he could spend a few hours out of the cold in some crappy house, sitting on a floor amongst a bunch of addicts, higher than a kite.  He didn’t care what he took, as long as it got him in somewhere warm and he wasn’t sharing a needle.  

One night that had blended into so many others, on a week or perhaps a month where the shelters had been full every time he’d checked.  He was sleeping off the nasty come down from a high and a persistent tugging on his leg woke him up.  He blinked groggily.  Someone was going through the duffle bag wrapped around his leg.  “Quit that!” he snapped, jerking it out of the guy’s hands.

“Shit, you’re a girl?” the guy asked, staring at Clint.

“Like hell I am,” Clint snarled, checking with shaking hands to make sure the parts of his bow and his arrows were still in there.  “What the fuck did you think you were doing?”

The guy shrugged.  “Can you actually shoot a bow or are you just some kind of freak who drags something that pawnable around?”

Clint zipped the bag decisively, glaring at him and holding the bag so tightly his knuckles went white.  “Of course I can shoot a fucking bow.”

“What about a gun?”

Clint had never fired a gun, but he stared the guy straight in the eye.  “I never miss my target.  Not since the first shot I took.”

The guy’s eyebrow went up.  “Really?”

“Really.  Bullseye every time.  I used to be a circus performer.  The Amazing Hawkeye.  Trained every day of my life since I was a kid before I left the circus.”

“Why’d you leave?” the man demanded.

Clint shrugged.  “None of your business.”

“You like money?”

Clint laughed.  Was this guy stupid or something?  “Who the hell doesn’t?”

The man nodded, a little smirk playing across his features.  “And are you actually an addict or can you stay clean if you’re getting paid enough?”

Clint sat up a little straighter.  “Pay me enough to put a real roof over my head and have a place to keep my shit and I can do anything you want me to.”  This was an opportunity.  He was sure of it.  He could feel it, sense it.  He was going to be able to support himself and not have to worry about someone stabbing him on a bad trip or stealing the only things he even owned.  

“All right.”  The man scribbled down an address.  “Be at this address at 2:30 tomorrow afternoon.”  

Clint took the paper, looking it over six or eight times to make sure he was reading it correctly.  He hoped the guy would chalk it up to him being half asleep. “Okay.”

“Bring your bow.  My boss is gonna want a demo.  We’ll provide you with a gun to try.”

Clint nodded.  “Got it.  I’ll be there.”

“Don’t be late.”  The guy turned and walked away, leaving Clint to wonder what the guy’s deal was.  

He found out at 2:30 the next day.  The guy worked for a man who needed some people scared a little with a few well-placed bullets.  As it turned out, shooting a gun wasn’t any harder than shooting a bow.  Just a matter of lining up, breathing, and squeezing.  And scaring a couple people, for a whole bunch of cash?  Clint could do that.  No problem.  Pop, pop, leave, collect.  It wasn’t even as involved as shooting an arrow through the middle of a group of four tumbling acrobats to hit a target on the other side.

 

 

Clint sat on the bed in his tiny studio apartment, knees to his chest, arms wrapped tightly around himself.  A man was dead because of him.  He’d done dozens of jobs and only had to scare someone, but he’d gotten so close to getting caught this time and he’d panicked.  He’d done it almost without thinking.  He’d turned, seen the man coming, gun drawn.  His mouth had gone dry and he had been sure he was about to die.  He’d raised his gun and fired, right between the man’s eyes.  

There hadn’t been some big spray of blood.  The guy hadn’t gone flying across the room.  It wasn’t like a movie.  He’d just crumpled to the floor, the expression on his face never wavering, momentum putting him down on his stomach, his face turned to the side.  He’d been alive one moment, then a bang and he wasn’t, he was just a dead-eyed stare on the floor, a hole between his eyes.  

Clint had stood staring at the guy for what felt like hours.  There wasn’t much blood.  It was weird.  He’d always thought someone would look more, well, dead.  But the guy looked like he was alive, except that he wasn’t breathing.  He was just dead, not alive.  It was horrifying in the way it wasn’t actually horrifying.  Just a little hole and it was over.

He had heard voices and had gone running, managing to escape without having to kill anyone.  He’d taken off, weaving through alleys, shoving his gun into his backpack when he’d realized it was still in his hand.  He’d made it back to his boss’s place, switching back and forth through the city about a dozen times to make sure he wasn’t being tailed and made his report about what had happened.  He didn’t remember what he’d said, just that his boss had clapped a larger than usual wad of money into his hand and sent him on his way.  

Somehow, he’d made it back to his apartment, where he’d spent ages throwing up until he was curled up painfully, retching, on his bathroom floor.  He’d lain there until the retching had stopped and he’d started to feel stiff, warm muscles cooling on the cold tile, and that just reminded him of the body cooling on the floor and he’d had to get up and go to the bed where he’d been sitting for hours.  

He’d killed a man and gotten away, cleanly, he thought.  He’d gotten away with murder.  That’s all he was now.  A murderer.

 

 

Clint had a much larger apartment and a much higher kill count.  He still threw up after every kill, but he didn’t have a choice.  He had to, or his boss would turn him in.  He couldn’t go to prison.  He’d die first.  He wasn’t sure what they’d even do with him.  A man who wasn’t a man where everyone seemed to think it counted.  Would they send him to a men’s prison and throw him to the population, or would they send him to a women’s prison?  He didn’t know and he was too afraid to try and find out.  Too scared to risk giving himself away.

He spent a lot of his down time watching television.  It was a luxury he’d never had outside the foster homes and it was something he could do where he didn’t risk exposing himself to the outside world, didn’t risk someone calling on him for ID, for someone to recognize him from the wrong place, the wrong time.

Daytime tv was usually boring and idiotic, either reruns, soap operas or terrible talk shows.  Today was a talk show kind of day, and by the time the show was over, he was glad it was.  He turned off the screen, staring at the black rectangle and blinking stupidly.  

There was medication.  Hormones.  That could make his voice drop and give him a beard.  There were men like him out there, born with parts that didn’t all quite line up.  And he could get hormones and be a real man, not stuck a kid or, worse, getting questioned all the time if he was a woman.  It was only getting worse the older he got without his voice dropping.

But now there was hope.  He could go back to blending in properly, the way he had as a kid.  All he had to do was figure out how to get these hormones.  

He thought about it for a long while, then decided if anyone would know how, it was drag queens.  They’d be able to tell him.  They were halfway between, weren’t they?  Not a man or a woman?  He wasn’t really sure, it wasn’t like he hung around them, but he ended up putting on a hooded sweater.   

He was thankful for the fake ID his boss had provided him, because otherwise he’d never have made it past the doorman.  A few discreet questions earned him the name of a doctor who was more than happy to hand out hormones to people without too many questions and he got out quickly once he had his information. 

It only took him a few days to get his first phial of testosterone and a bunch of syringes under a fake name.  It wasn’t as bad as hitting a vein for drugs, just a little prick.  And then… nothing.  Nothing at all happened.  He didn’t know what he’d expected.  The doctor had said it might take months to see any effects, but he’d somehow thought it would be different for him.  

Two months later, his period didn’t come.  He celebrated with cake and pot and bad whiskey, watching movies all night in his apartment when it was a full two weeks late.  It was the happiest he'd been in a very, very long time.


	5. Winning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, this story has reached its intended conclusion. I apologize for the long, long, long wait. 
> 
> Clint learns he has won everything. Forever.

Clint grunted as he hit the ground, a bullet graze burning in his thigh like it was on fire.He was going to die.He was going to die and there was nothing that could save him.Whoever these men in black were, they were going to kill him if he didn’t kill them first.He raised his gun and fired at the one he could see and it clicked.He pulled the trigger again and again, only to be met with a quiet click.  

 “Fuck!” Clint tried to scramble to his feet, but the burning pain in his thigh wouldn’t let him.  

 The man in black rose up out of his cover, gun aimed at Clint’s face.  “Mr. Barton, put the gun down and we’ll get your leg looked at before you bleed out.” 

“Just shoot me and get it over with,” Clint snarled, still trying to get up.

“Your options right now are to put the gun down and come quietly or to hold onto the gun and we’ll shoot you full of tranquilizers and take you anyway.Getting killed is off the table now that your gun isn’t working properly.”  

The man sounded patient and kind, but Clint wasn’t buying it.He and his team had just shot Clint and now they were planning to bring him in and do what?Disappear him?He wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life in a tiny cell.But at the same time, if he went with them awake he had a snowflake’s chance in hell of managing to keep his secrets his own and escaping.He shot the man a dirty look and tossed the gun aside.  

“That’s a good choice,” the man said, sounding pleased, then touched his ear.“I need a medical team to bring in Mr. Barton.”

Clint curled in on himself and waited.  

 

 

 

Hours passed and Clint’s favourite jeans were ruined, split clean up the leg, but his dignity was at least somewhat intact and his leg was stitched up.He was now handcuffed to an interrogation table and everything about this made his skin crawl.He was trapped.Trapped and doomed.He’d seen no signs of an escape route anywhere and once he’d been patched up, they’d just left him at the table.He’d miscalculated.He should have got himself killed rather than get brought in.He was never going to see the sky again, never going to shoot again.They were going to keep him in a cell, caged.

The door opened and the man walked in, carrying a thick folder and a cup of coffee.He set the coffee down in front of Clint and stood across the table from him, the folder towards the man.“I have some questions for you,” he said.

Clint huffed.“Quid pro quo, Clarice,” he quipped angrily.

“I was really hoping for more creativity than Silence of the Lambs, Mr. Barton.We both know you’re better than that.”The man sounded legitimately disappointed.

“Whatever you say, Agent K.”

“A little better.Shall we begin?”

“You can ask, doesn’t mean I’m telling.”Clint started to cross his arms, but was stopped abruptly by the handcuffs chaining him to the table.

“Very well.How many people ave you killed, Mr. Barton?”

Clint shot him an unimpressed glare.“None, of course.”

 “Do you lie to everyone or just to nameless agents of shadowy organizations?”

 “Nope, next question.”

“All right then, _Charles_ , tell me what happened to the little girl?”

Clint blinked in double confusion at that.“I’m about a thousand percent positive you’ve got the wrong guy right now.”

“Really?”The man pulled a photograph out of the folder and slapped it down in front of Clint.“Because every bit of information we have says that when you were fourteen, you kidnapped this girl.”

Clint looked at the photo.His own face glowered up at him from a school photo at the school with the awful uniforms, lank too-long hair framing his fuming, tiny face.“Then you’ve got bad intel, because I didn’t,” he said, a strange whooshing feeling washing through his veins, his blood rushing through his ears and his head feeling like it was floating away.

“What happened to Francis, Barney?Did you kill her?”

Clint looked back up at the man in stunned silence for a couple of beats, then startled as laughter started to bubble out of him.As he laughed, it began to turn a bit hysterical and he lowered his head to the table, gasping for air around the laughter.

The man’s face turned stony as he schooled his expression, waiting for Clint’s hysterics to pass.Clint looked up to see it and laughed again, high pitched and a strange combination of relaxed and panicky he’d never felt before.

“Mr. Barton?” the man asked as Clint sucked in deep breaths, tears streaming down his face as he finally calmed.  

“Whoever did your intel is a fucking moron,” Clint finally got out.

“What makes you say that?”

“Barney Barton never kidnapped Francis.Francis went willingly.”

The man’s brow furrowed as he took that in.“And you’re not Barney Barton?”

“Nope.”

“But you know him and you knew Francis?”

Clint laughed again, not as helplessly as before, managing to get himself calm again within seconds.“Your intel guy should meet with a firing squad.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah.”

The man waited expectantly for more information and when none was forthcoming, asked “Did you steal Barney Barton’s identity?”

Clint snorted.“Fuck no.I’ve never claimed to be him.I wouldn’t want to be that asshole if you paid me.”

“Then who are you?”

“You really don’t know?You’re not just fucking with me?”Clint looked up at him incredulously.

“I’m not.Do you share a body with Barney Barton?” the man asked, completely deadpan.

Clint laughed again, then stopped uncertainly.“Wait, was that a serious question?”

“Yes.”

“Then no.Fuck no.”

“Tell me who you are and how to find Barney Barton and we can let you go.”

“I haven’t seen Barney in almost five years.I’ve got no idea where you’d find that asshole.”

“Tell me who you are and I’ll double check that.”

“Clint Barton.”

“That’s an alias.No Clint Barton exists.”

“Let me try again.Clint Francis Barton.”

The man pursed his lips, puzzling that out.“You took her name after you killed her?”

“Francis Barton didn’t die.She never existed,” Clint said firmly.

“We have years of social services case files and a missing persons report that say she did.”

Clint shrugged.“Well they’re wrong.There is no Francis, there is only Clint.”

The man was quiet a moment.“Are you saying that _you_ are Francis Barton?”

“I’m saying that it’s me in that photo,” Clint said.“And that the photo should be burned.”

The man stared at him a moment longer, then turned to the long mirror.“We need Francis Barton’s file updated.Change the sex to male and the name to Clinton.Drop Charles Barton from our wanted list and leave him on the FBI’s.Fire Matthewson, his intel gathering skills didn’t pass muster.”He turned back to Clint.“I do apologize for the mistake.Shall we begin again?”

Clint shrugged.“Do what you want.I’m the one chained to a table, you’re the one with the big scary file of bad intel.”

The man considered that, then waved a hand at the window and the cuffs dropped off of Clint’s wrists.“My apologies, Mr. Barton.Consider this a recruitment interview.

Clint rubbed his wrists and looked up at him.“Recruitment for what?”

The man extended his hand to shake.“My name is Agent Phil Coulson and I’m a special recruiter for the Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> I would like it noted that I am not trying to imply that being impoverished and abused or wearing his brother's clothing 'made baby Francis trans.' I, like little Francis, wore boys' clothes as a child. As a result, it never occurred to me I was a girl until someone reinforced that to me. I'm not a transman, I'm non-binary, but I can't help thinking that similar things could happen to another poverty stricken little child who happened to be born with an innie rather than an outie. 
> 
> I also apologize for using the dirty trailer park stereotype. Most people who live in trailers aren't abusive, alcoholic, child neglecting/abusing dickbags and are in fact really awesome people who are either constrained by finances or being smart with their finances to minimize expenses.


End file.
